Hi folks

A quick question on NCN and priorities of users, having just witnessed (and failed to pacify) yet another ‘incident’? (Tho’ I was not part of it).

Probably just my ignorance, but once in place is there anything to stop a local authority redesignating an off-road section of the NCN as a shared use path with pedestrian priority as our LA seems to have done? It does mean that cyclists are even more at risk on these than the roads , since dog owners now have impunity to say that a cyclist knocked off by their dog should have stopped, and all conflicts, accidents & incidents now implicitly become the fault of the cyclist.

If not, is it cynical to ask whether it is legitimate to call it a cycle network?

Peter

Peter Cox

Senior Lecturer

Department of Social Studies and Counselling

University of Chester

Parkgate Road, Chester

CH1 4BJ, United Kingdom

+44 (0)1244 512039

Recent publications

Peter Cox (2012) “A Denial of our Boasted Civilisation”: cyclists’ view on conflicts over road use in Britain, 1926-1935 Transfers, 2 (3) 4-30

Peter Cox (2012) Strategies Promoting Cycle Tourism in Belgium: Practices and Implications, Tourism Planning & Development, 9 (1) 25-39 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2012.658167

Peter Cox (2010) Moving People: Sustainable Transport Development (London: Zed Books/Cape Town: UCT Press; Banglore: Books for Change 2011) also as  In Bewegung: Ist nachhaltiger Personentransport möglich? (Darmstadt: WBG 2012)